


bubble

by naveed



Category: EastEnders (TV)
Genre: Affairs, Afterglow, Love Bites, M/M, Stomach aches, bonus bobby because hes my son, thoughts and feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-11 11:33:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19927408
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/naveed/pseuds/naveed
Summary: "we don't gotta talk about nothing nice if you wanna come downbut she don't gotta know about nothingshe don't gotta know"[ i don't wanna waste my time - joji ]“you and me, we don’t make the rules,” ben laments over callum’s bare skin. “whitney does.”





	bubble

Late one night, alone in his room, Ben starts to think about Whitney.

He wants to be selfish, really, and he’s usually very good at it too – but tonight his mind is wandering to the world outside his bubble. A mere few minutes away, Whitney is in bed with Callum, resting after another day of domestic bliss. Ben knows that every day ends with the two of them feeling completely different emotions. It makes his stomach twist.

His mind raises him a question: do I have it worse, or does she? I do, he thinks, because I want him and I can’t have him. Then; she does, because she has him, but he’s not hers.

Whitney, she just wants it to be simple. She wants to settle down with a nice man, a nice job, have a nice family and live a nice life. No mess – and what’s awful is she thinks she has that. Callum, overall, has given her nothing to be worried about. He’s given her simple. He’s given her nice. He’s given another man a handjob in a park.

So there’s some mess. Ben has known Whitney for a long time, and to an outsider, it looks like she’s finally getting the life she wants. Not just wants – deserves. Because she’s nice! That’s the worst bit. It’s easy, _very_ easy, for Ben to be unsympathetic to bad people. He can be the other man, play his part in the greater scandal, then watch unscathed from the sidelines when it all explodes. But Whitney, she’s too nice, and Ben only really dislikes her because she’s getting in the way. When he takes a step back and observes the big picture, she’s not doing anything wrong. Whitney, she’s just living her life. It’s Ben and Callum who are making the mess.

The mess! It gives him a headache. Ben is sick of observing, but what can he do?

-

Callum and Whitney sit in the café the next morning. Coffee for him, tea for her.

“Do you think,” Whitney starts, hesitating for a thought. “Do you think that the way your dad treated you and your brother makes you want to be a better dad yourself?”

Callum looks up at her, at her kind eyes and tilted head. He swallows hard and says, “yeah, definitely.”

“I know I wanna be like Bianca,” Whitney ponders, “she’s basically my mum, you see. Took me in. And I’ve seen what crappy parents do to their kids and… I don’t want that to be me. To be us.”

“It won’t be,” Callum assures her, like he’s got it all rehearsed. “You and me, we’re gonna be great. And our kid, it’s gonna be the greatest little kid you’ve ever met. I know it will,” he reaches out and holds her hands, “because it’s got you for a mum.”

Whitney smiles with love. “And you for a dad.”

Callum smiles back. His gut is twisting so tightly he’s not sure it’ll ever come undone. His palms start to go clammy, so he pulls away from Whitney and holds his coffee up with both hands. He tries not to shake as he downs the rest of his drink. It’s too sweet. He doesn’t want it. Whitney sips her tea, her mind quiet and content. The coffee, it’s too sweet. They’re getting married – it’s too sweet. He doesn’t want it. He doesn’t want any of it.

In his house, Ben is removing his Grindr photo.

All he is now is a name, but the men still come flooding into his messages. It’s a pretty twisted ego boost. A man in his 60s asks if he’ll meet in his hotel room. A boy who’s lied about his age asks him how big he is. A man he’s messaged before sends him a photo of his cock and says he’s thinking about the other night. Ben doesn’t remember his face.

He opens a message from a new man, pretty face, same age as him. _Why did you remove your photo?_ it says, _I was enjoying looking at that x_

 _want another one?_ Ben replies.

_Yes_

_face?_

_Surprise me x_

Ben scrolls through his gallery and sends him a dick pic from 3 months ago. He stretches his legs out over the arm of the sofa. Bobby, sat at the dining table, glances at him from the corner of his eye.

 _Hot x_ is the reply. Ben sighs heavily. Bobby looks at him again, then back to his laptop. Ben gives him a dirty look behind his back.

His phone lights up again with a longer message, detailing all the things the man wants to do with him. Ben reads it with a blank face, then closes the app. He doesn’t want it. He doesn’t want any of it.

-

The next time Ben and Callum lock eyes across the pub, they end up in the toilets, kissing against the cubicle wall. Ben is panting quietly, crown of his head hitting the cool concrete with the gentlest of thuds. Callum’s hands wander from his hips, up his sides, then curling around the back of his head. As Callum’s fingers tighten in his hair, Ben unbuttons the top of his shirt and kisses lower and lower.

Above his collarbone, Callum has a hickey. Juvenile, Ben thinks, but only because it’s from her. He knows that if he could, he would mark him up for everyone to see. He wants to leave love bites all over his neck, chest, inner thighs. He wants to write his number on his forehead. Carve his name into his arm. But he settles for kissing the mark that’s beginning to fade, listening to Callum sighing as he sucks it red and purple and dark again. “There,” he says, leaning back. “Good as new.”

-

Ben is wrestling his way through the market crowd when Whitney calls his name. He considers pretending he hadn’t heard, until the only empty space for him to walk through leads directly to her stall. She beckons him towards her, smiling, which is a relief at least. He pushes down the sourness in his throat and forces a smile back to her.

“Ben,” she starts, pulling him gently from the crowd to stand beside her. “You and Callum, you’re on good terms again, right?”

Ben tenses his shoulders and puts on his confidence. “Yeah,” he nods casually, “yeah, course we are.”

“Oh, good,” she sounds genuinely relieved, “then, has he told you we’ve set the date?”

Ben raises his eyebrows. “Have you now?”

“Yep,” Whitney chirps, swaying slightly with excitement. “31st of August. But I wanted you to hear it from me, because, well, don’t take it personally, but…” she pauses, and Ben makes sure his face is staying friendly. “You might not get an invite.”

“Oh.”

“Don’t take it personally!” Whitney raises her hands defensively. “It’s just, we’re keeping it a kind of small thing. Like, closest friends and family. So, I don’t know what exactly sort of terms you and him are on at the moment, but it’s his call, really, so. Yeah. If you’re friends again, I didn’t want you to be disappointed, or… or anything.”

Ben senses her unease and feels a little pity. “It’s fine,” he lies. “I get it. Me and him, we’re mates but not best mates. So I’m really not offended. Nice of you to tell me, though.”

Whitney sighs with a smile. “Okay, great,” she laughs nervously. “You know, I’m glad we can keep all that other stuff behind us. Me and Callum, we’re super stress-free at the moment.”

“Glad to hear it,” Ben says, glancing behind him. If this conversation carries on any longer, he might explode. “I better get going,” he says, already walking off. Whitney calls a weak _see ya._

The sourness that seeps through Ben’s body quickly rises and overwhelms his senses. He rubs his face hard as he heads straight to the funeral parlour. Behind the doors, Callum is sat at a desk on his own. In a building that sees people grieving for their dead loved ones every single hour, Callum’s face is the worst at the sight of Ben, alive and well.

“What now?”

“Your missus,” Ben falters through the flimsy confident front, “just told me I ain’t invited to the wedding.”

Callum scoffs. “Too right you ain’t.”

Ben stares at him for a moment. His stomach has stopped twisting, but now he’s not sure there’s anything in there at all. His hollow heartbeat rings in his ears. Callum, he looks pretty. He looks beautiful. “Why not?”

It comes out embarrassingly feeble. His mask has completely crumbled, and he just lets it fall. Callum takes in the small changes in his demeanour, and feels his chest tighten. He leans forward towards Ben, elbows resting on the desk. “I can’t do it,” he admits quietly. “I can’t marry her with you there. But I can’t not marry her.”

“Cal,” Ben sighs, walking over to him. “I promise, you don’t have to marry her. The world isn’t gonna end if you don’t.” He swallows his pride and adds, “and she probably won’t even break up with you.”

Callum shakes his head, like he doesn’t get it; “but everyone else! How do I explain it? One day I’m announcing it to the whole fucking Vic, the next I’m calling the whole thing off.” Callum looks up at him desperately, before groaning and burying his face in his hands. Ben, it kills him to see him like this.

“Look at you,” Ben whispers, and Callum drags his hands away from his eyes. “This is tearing you apart.”

Callum’s eyes glass over, shining ever so slightly in the muted daylight. “Just like you said it would.”

Ben reaches out and offers Callum his hand. Callum lifts up a finger and brushes it against Ben’s knuckles.

“Whitney’s out tonight,” he whispers, avoiding eye contact. “Come over, please.”

-

“He’s the one, you know,” Whitney tells her friend that night over a glass of elderflower. “No one’s ever loved me like Callum.”

She’s right. He really, really, doesn’t want to lose her.

-

Every afterglow is a different colour. The first night they spent in Callum’s bed, taking it slow and acting like they belonged there – that afterglow was a rosy pink. Relaxed and idyllic, the closest to romantic they think they’ve ever got. The time Callum fucked Ben against his desk in the car lot bathed them in a deep red emotion; lusty, dark and intense. One that wasn’t supposed to happen, but they couldn’t stop the passion from rising.

The afterglow here is blue. Pale blue, deep blue; it changes or doesn’t matter. It feels calm, but in an odd way. A sort of melancholic quietness. For the first time in days, Callum’s mind has stopped racing. He lets himself relax into the feeling of Ben. He draws light circles on Ben’s shoulder; his chest lifts his head up with every breath he takes.

Callum and Whitney spend every night and every morning together in this bed. Tonight, with Ben, it could have been the start of something. Instead, it feels like an end.

In his head, Ben is listing every reason it’s unfair. “You and me, we don’t make the rules,” he laments over Callum’s bare skin. “Whitney does.”

Callum’s drawing finger slows. He hums, “does she?”

“We work around her, don’t we? We wait for her to leave, lie about where you’ve been to her face…” he cranes his neck up and looks at Callum. From this angle, he looks vulnerable. It’s an uncommon sight on the face of Ben Mitchell. It’s a sight that pulls on Callum’s heartstrings, as hard as monks pull church bell ropes. “When do we get to decide things for ourselves? Just exist as me and you?”

 _Me and you._ The phrase ignites a hundred undiscovered emotions within Callum. Oh, to just be the two of them. To live in a bubble. It ignites longing and sadness and the closest to love he’s ever felt. “You don’t know how much I miss you,” he whispers.

Ben looks like he could cry. “I miss you too.”


End file.
